How To Create A Social Media Marketing Plan
Every action on social media should be a part of a larger marketing strategy. That means every Tweet, reply, like and comment should be guided by a plan to achieve certain goals. The plan will be a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve for your practice using social networks. The more specific you can get with your plan, the more effective it will be.
Create objectives and goals
The first step to any social media marketing strategy is to establish objectives and goals that you hope to achieve at the practice. A simple way to start is to write down a list of goals and make sure to ask yourself what the goal will look like when completed, and use that to determine how you will track it. You should approach these goals using the SMART approach, meaning they should all be:
Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound
Conduct a social media audit
Before making your social media plan, you need to assess your current social media and how it’s working for your practice. You need to find out who is currently following/connecting with you, which social media sites your patients tend to use and how your social media presence compares to your competitors’. Once you’ve conducted the audit you should have a clear picture of every account and what purpose they have for the practice.
Create or improve your social media pages
Make sure you choose which networks best meet your social media goals. If you don’t already have social media profiles on each network, create them with broader goals and audience in mind. If you do have existing accounts, improve on them and update them for your best possible results.
Every social network has a different audience and should be treated differently. Optimizing profiles for SEO can help generate more traffic to your website and blog. Cross-promoting social media accounts and making sure your social media profiles are properly completed with images and text will help you get your content out there further.
Get social media inspiration from competitors
One of the most important reasons for being active on social media is that your patients are already there. That usually means, so are your competitors which means you have a wealth of knowledge available to you. Look at your competitors for inspiration when it comes to what content you post. How can you distinguish yourself from your competitors?
Patients can also offer inspiration, not only through the content that they share but in the way that they phrase their messages. See how your target audience writes tweets and learn their habits, when they share and why.
Create an editorial calendar
Your editorial calendar lists the dates and times you intend to post blogs, Facebook posts, Twitter messages and other content. Create the calendar and then schedule messages in advance rather than updating constantly throughout the day. You want to work hard on the language and format of these messages as great content will be essential to succeeding at social media.
Test, evaluate and adjust your plan
To find out what adjustments need to be made to your social media strategy, you should constantly be testing by:
- Tracking links using URL shorteners
- Use Hootsuite’s social media analytics to track success
- Track page visits driven by social media with Google analytics
- Record and analyse your success and failures and then adjust accordingly
The most important thing to understand about your social media plan is that it should be constantly changing. As new networks emerge, you may want to be flexible and add them into your plan.
If you would like any further information then give the Dental Design team a call on: 01202677277.
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